


Wednesday the 13th

by aisle_one



Series: Love and Felching [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Felching, Love, M/M, Pining, Reconciliation, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:17:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisle_one/pseuds/aisle_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur meets Eames on a Wednesday the 13th.  Eames breaks up with Arthur on a Wednesday the 13th.  They reunite and reconcile on a Wednesday the 13th.  It's <i>not</i> a Wednesday the 13th when they break-up a second time, but it is when Eames returns, determined to get Arthur back.</p><p>There's love and a little felching.</p><p>____</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wednesday the 13th

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the loveliest neontiger55.
> 
> _

Arthur was sitting in a stalled train at the 42nd Street station when a preternatural sense descended on him, possessing him momentarily so that he caught a glimpse into his near future. From the hiccough in his ride to the conductor yelling over the intercom: "Out of service! This is the last stop." Jumper, Arthur automatically thought, followed by _shit_ , as they were ordered to exit. Sure, the interruption wasn't uncommon. Not even unusual. The cursing, the thrum of tension that threatened an edge of violence, the pushing and shoving to be positioned right smack in front of the express train doors when it stopped across the platform - none of it was more dramatic than any other day. Not in New York City. But - chalk it up to feeling. Blame it on his gut. Arthur just knew. It wasn't just going to be one of those days; it was going to be an epic disaster.

This suspicion was cemented when he arrived, finally, at his office building, and ran for the elevator. The old thing was persnickety, notorious for its swift-closing doors. Arthur slipped through, narrowly missing a pinch, and punched floor six. The thing startled, ascended, then came to an abrupt stop. Or rather, it jumped. Between floors three and four, where it seemed to change its mind, caught at cross-purposes with itself, and ended up confused. No one liked a confused elevator. 

"It's up or down, what is so hard about this?" Arthur yelled at no one - or so he thought. It was barely a quarter past seven. No one but Arthur got to the office this early.

"You might want to try praising it," said a Brit with a distinctively deep drawl behind him. "I fear your criticism might have hurt its feelings. What's that old adage? Attract more flies with honey than vinegar?"

Oh, _god_. Arthur silently counted to five and slowly turned. "You. Again."

"Hello, Arthur."

Eames. And it dawned on Arthur then. "It's Wednesday, isn't it?"

"The thirteenth, in fact."

Arthur groaned.

 

_

 

Arthur met Eames on a Wednesday the 13th, in the year 2011, in a dingy gay bar in the Lower East Side. 

Freshly ejected from the closet and only marginally discriminating, Arthur had hopped onto the stool next to the muscular guy with the thick lips and thighs made for riding. "Quick, give me a kiss," he said, and didn't wait for acquiescence. Arthur swooped down on those lips and it was stunning, really, the electric bolt that shot down his spine when the stranger instantly kissed him back, hungry and wet.

"What?" Arthur said, dazed, and what was meant to discourage another patron from hitting on him resulted minutes later in a bathroom quickie. 

Arthur had had his share of furtive hand jobs and, occasionally, been fingered, but he had never had anyone munch so lasciviously on his sweaty balls. The few girls who had gone down on him when he was still trying to pass as straight were never this...ambitious. Certainly none had ever done what this guy - Eames - was doing, pulling eagerly on Arthur's cock, dragging it slow and deliberately into his mouth until the head of it hit the back of his throat. Arthur's eyes crossed at the sensation and his knees might have buckled under him if not for Eames's large, wide-spanning hands holding him in place. A filthy sweep of Eames's tongue, a firm press along his perineum, and Arthur was coming, shooting his load in Eames's mouth. The blowjob was spectacular, but Arthur never expected to fall for the first guy who sucked his cock.

Their attraction was like a natural disaster, immediately consuming, swift and terrible in its ability to destroy. Urgency drove their coupling. They collided - against walls, on floors, into the back of motel room doors that couldn't shut quickly enough, in those early days when Arthur refused to bring Eames home and Eames shared his with too many people. 

Eames spent hours taking Arthur apart, devoted to every inch of Arthur's body, dissecting and inspecting, and thorough with his hands and his mouth wherever he lay them. Arthur panted and gasped and begged, and one night, while his sweat was cooling, and their hands were still twined, it escaped him. A phrase. Three words that would cause Eames to go stiff and pull away.

Three months to the day, and on another Wednesday the 13th, it was over.

 

-

 

"It's been twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. Correction: fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seven - "

"I have to pee," Arthur interrupted, shooting to his feet.

"And here I thought you were ready to chat."

"Shut up," Arthur groused. He eyed the elevator ceiling.

"We're not actually in an action movie and this isn't a Hollywood set. I don't think you can escape that way, though it might be fun watching you try." Eames grinned up at him from where he was sitting on the floor, smug with this unexpected accomplishment. He had Arthur trapped, at the mercy of his blathering, otherwise known as Arthur's ninth circle of hell, where Arthur was convinced he'd end up postmortem - with an eternal hangover and an angry, never be to be emptied bladder.

Well, needs must. Never let it be said that Arthur didn't know how to adapt. Arthur poured the rest of his coffee to the carpeted floor, turned his back to Eames, and proceeded to unbuckle his belt. 

"Oh my," Eames said behind him, "it's going to be that kind of show, is it?"

And with a sudden flash of genius, Arthur thought - sure, why not? He wasn't exactly helpless here. He released his pants, his underwear, let them cascade to the floor, and lifted the tail of his shirt. Eames loved his ass. Arthur widened his stance and set to pissing.

"I - " Eames said, his voice gone rough and unsteady.

Arthur smiled, turning his head to expose his profile, and flashed a dimple.

"Fine," Eames said, annoyed, finally in simpatico with Arthur's displeasure and likely suffering a partially erect cock. He had a pavlovian reaction to Arthur's ass. Though to be fair, who didn't? One only had to be struck by lightning once to be forever changed by it. Arthur's ass made men weep; it deserved military grade. "I deserve that. Though, frankly, it didn't have to come to this. All I'd wanted was a decent conversation with you. You've forced me to stalk you."

Ah, Eames logic. "Said the murderer to his murdered victim." Done, finally, Arthur zipped up. He capped the cup, held it away from him, and wrinkled his nose.

"Here, I've got something," Eames said. He dug in his messenger bag, pulled out an extra large ziplock, and extended it to Arthur. Arthur looked at it curiously. Noticing, Eames offered, "It's for...things." As in coins, pigeon feathers, tossed Metrocards, random mutilated bits of the city that Eames might later alchemize to art, something astonishing.

Or - for the temporary storage of illegal narcotics intended for later delivery. Not Arthur's business, not now. Perhaps not ever, as Eames had thrown in his face during The One Last Fight to End All Fights.

"Right," Arthur said, accepting the bag and carefully placed the cup in it as if it would be later subject to forensic analysis. He set it down, a distance away, and wiped his hands on his trousers. He resumed his place on the floor, sitting in the farthest corner away from Eames.

"If you'd only let me apologize."

Arthur sighed, exhausted suddenly. "Eames."

"Arthur."

That was the problem. Eames had apologized. Over and over again, and rather than feel charmed by his perseverance like a starry-eyed love interest in a romantic comedy, Arthur was disinterested. They were street performer antics, derivate and hack job expressions of love. Where was all this trying the last time they were together, when Arthur had capitulated and agreed, fine, yes, he would give Eames another chance? But Eames, unpredictable in all other things, predictably disappointed Arthur, proving yet again that past behavior was indicative of future outcome. 

People didn't change. They just got older.

"What I've been trying - " Eames began.

"What's different this time?" Arthur interrupted again, challenging Eames with a look.

Eames didn't answer immediately. He stared back at Arthur, but all trace of proprietary smugness was gone from his face, leaving behind only Eames, the one Arthur returned to each time - in his mind when awake, in his dreams when asleep, in the palpitating silence of his empty apartment and in the bed they once occupied together. Finally, sounding defeated, he said, "Nothing. Probably nothing. Just that - I was hoping I'd worn you down."

That was the problem. Eames had worn him down long ago.

 

_

 

It wasn't the first time Arthur and Eames had been stuck in an elevator together. It also wasn't the first time Arthur got naked in an elevator, while stuck with Eames.

Eleven months after their break-up, on yet another Wednesday the 13th, in 2012, Arthur and Eames collided in a bathroom stall, in yet another gay bar in the Lower East Side, for a reunion of sorts.

"Off," Eames growled, tugging at Arthur's belt, attacking his pants zipper like it was personally offending him. "Get these darn things off." 

"No, wait," Arthur said, batting at his hands. "If we're gonna do this, it'll be in the sterile comfort of my bedroom. Come on." Which is how they ended up humping in the elevator of Arthur's apartment building, stalled inconveniently (conveniently), on their way up.

Eames liked to bite.

He grazed his teeth along Arthur's collarbone, denting his skin near past the point from pleasure to pain, as he twisted his hips, his cock brushing the sweet spot inside Arthur that made his eyes roll back. "Yeah," Eames whispered filthily into his ear. "Like that, do you?" He bent his head and slurped a nipple into his mouth, roped it with his tongue, caught it between his teeth, and pulled. The effect was simultaneous. Arthur blissed out, his shut lids fluttering as his orgasm crashed over him in a tsunami wave, obliterating his mind, fucking with the synapses and leaving him strung out and shaking like an addict in the aftermath. 

His legs trembled. Unconcerned, Eames turned him on his stomach, splayed against the elevator wall, and dropped to his knees. He got to work. His strategy was simple: start from the outside and work your way in. Sweet and sweeping on the surface, then hard and unyielding when it penetrated, Eames's tongue was uncompromising, merciless in its attention to detail. Wet, hot, and invasive, as it licked him clean, no inch of Arthur's flesh was spared. By the time Eames announced him spic and span good as new, Arthur was hard again. Two fingers plugged inside Arthur and the jagged edge of Eames's thumbnail scraping the rim of his hole took care of that. Arthur came a second time, teeth rattling.

Eames half-carried him to his apartment. In Arthur's bed, Eames flush against his back, his cock stuttering its way back into Arthur, Eames said, "I don't think I can leave you alone." Arthur threw his head back, forced Eames to stop on another thrust out. Hold _there_. He laced his fingers through Eames's where they were pressed to Arthur's chest, and replied shakily, "I don't think I want you to."

Ah, the circle of life.

 

_

 

"Do you remember that other time we got stuck in an elevator together?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. When in doubt, sell sex. The default motto of the marketing industry, Eames also prescribed to this unfailing strategy. Because it was true, as Harry had told Sally, "The sex part always gets in the way." 

In Arthur's world, it worked like this: take sex, shave off a letter, and what you end up with is an ex. And Arthur didn't stay friends with exes. In Arthur's opinion, the concept of staying friends post break-up was a pointless exercise. He side-eyed anyone who claimed the opposite, and verily concluded that they were co-dependent, or had a general tendency to prolong unhealthy attachments, or were sadomasochistic and enjoyed bearing witness to their ex moving on and falling in love with someone else or otherwise being happy. Arthur didn't give a fuck's worth if his exes ended up in a state of eternal domestic bliss with someone other than him, or filthy rich, or an anchorman on CNN, or dead. Who cared if Bob Smith snorted a coke line too many and fatally conked his head on the toilet's edge in his bathroom, spiraling into nirvana? Arthur didn't. 

Except Eames. When Eames called him from the holding cell of Brooklyn's criminal court hours past midnight, slurring his words as he said, "You're my one phone call. I got nobody else." - Arthur didn't even change. He pulled on a hoodie, slipped sockless into a pair of loafers, rushed to the courthouse, and bailed Eames out. But Arthur and Eames were not friends. They couldn't be.

"All stories that start the same don't end the same," Arthur said.

"Naked?"

Arthur laughed, unable to help it. "If you remember correctly, that already happened."

"Oh, I remember. My eidetic memory took note and stashed away the image with the rest. I like to rifle through my naked Arthur collection on a rainy day."

"Is that so?" And just like that, it was easy again. "First time I'm hearing about this eidetic memory of yours."

"Well, truth be told, I'd only discovered it after you left."

"You mean after you left."

"Tomato, tom-ah-to." Eames mimed his hands as if he was weighing two objects. "As I was saying, my recall skills sharpened at the demise of our relationship. It's like I'd grown a mutant gene." He gave Arthur an appraising look. "I don't know if you're aware of this but - you've had staying power." 

Arthur's chest seized unexpectedly at Eames's words. He said, "Are you trying to woo me again, Mr. Eames?" It was meant to be a joke, but it came out sounding invested, as if Arthur cared - too much. His face grew hot and he slid his eyes away, unable, suddenly, to meet Eames's eyes.

"Darling - " Eames dragged himself to Arthur's corner, stopping short of touching him, but near enough for Arthur to fall unobstructed into Eames's lap, if he allowed himself, with his head laid there, as Eames sat next to him and carded through his hair. "For the rest of my life, if you'd let me. Or yours, for the rest of yours."

 

_

 

It wasn't a Wednesday, and it wasn't on the 13th, but Arthur will never forget the day he got the call in the middle of the night that had him immediately texting Eames.

_I need you._

Eames arrived at his apartment less than a half hour later to Arthur slumped on the sofa, his face buried in his hands.

"What is it?" Eames said, panicked and crouched on the floor before Arthur, refusing to let him disengage as Eames drew him close. 

Unyielding. Eames was as unyielding as a boulder anchored in the midst of a rushing river and Arthur surrendered, grounding himself in Eames's certainty. Eames, who wasn't his friend, who Arthur hadn't seen since bailing him out of jail, and before that, not since their second break-up, harsher than the first, when Eames had marched from their living room, stepping on a battlefield of broken picture frames and Arthur's favorite vase and an unspooled VCR tape, with a small duffel thrown over his shoulder packed with the sparest necessities. Never mind the wardrobe he'd accumulated while living with Arthur, the scores of ugly printed shirts, the pairs and pairs of jeans that hung low on his hips. Forget the Ikea furniture Arthur chose, but Eames put together, or the stupid, self-freezing mug Arthur gave Eames the one Christmas they spent as a cohabiting couple. It was an eyesore, meant to be utilitarian, but Eames could put it in the freezer and it chilled efficiently in the evening for his beer, though what Arthur had really wanted was to buy him something nice, something breakable that would require more care. But that was the problem with Eames. He always wanted things easy, and Arthur was just learning how to compromise.

"It's my sister," Arthur said, after awhile. He pulled away, scraped raw inside, as if he'd been gutted and dragged on asphalt.

Mal. Oh, Mal. Fierce, bold, and unrepentantly joyful when high, high, high on life, and desperately anchorless when low. The doctors had warned that she might succumb, that despair might prove too tempting to resist one day. 

"I'm sorry," Eames said, hugging him hard.

"Stay," Arthur said. "Please." So Eames did. The next morning, they drove to Boston together, where Eames stood beside Arthur at the funeral, held one of his hands, while Arthur's mother held the other. 

They fucked once. In the hotel, after Arthur had woken Eames with Eames's cock already in his ass, after grief had kept Arthur awake for three nights, and he just needed. The regret, the number of tiny, insignificant promises he'd made to Mal - he'll call more, he'll visit, he'll buy her another box of those chocolates she can't stop thinking about. He had meant to do all those things and now...now, he just _needed_.

Eames stayed on his back, unmoving, except to meet Arthur part way, on a downward slide, and but for his hands roaming Arthur, slick with sweat skidding up his thighs, hooked up under his armpits, pulling Arthur to him for a kiss. Placating, murmuring understanding, offering forgiveness or a substitute for it. A chance, perhaps, at redeeming himself.

They were not friends. They couldn't be. But they were Arthur and Eames, Eames and Arthur. The rhythm and the melody made of their own unique song.

 

_

 

Eight months ago, on yet another Wednesday the 13th, Arthur ran into Eames for the fourth time. By then, Arthur had stopped thinking it was a coincidence. (Though, in fact, he had never thought it was coincidence, but fate. But people like Arthur didn't say such things, because people like Arthur didn't believe in such things. To say it was fate would be like Arthur allowing superstition to dictate his destiny. It made as much sense as wishing on a penny thrown in a fountain, or blowing a day's pay on a lottery ticket. Magic, or faith, or hope, and hope being the worst offender of them all. It was best as theory, like a plane circling a runway, so long as it never took off there was no risk of it crashing.)

Even if Eames wasn't so obviously stationed on the street corner, styled as a human billboard (dreadful), obstructing sidewalk traffic as he passed out flyers for the Vitamin Shoppe located on the ground floor of Arthur's office building, Arthur would have realized that Eames had been gradually converging on him, staging fake spontaneous encounters. In fact, Arthur deduced that Eames had fashioned a pattern similar to a goose destined south for the winter, and Arthur's office to Eames was the Caribbean holiday, a reliable place to land. Here, where loneliness and heartache were easier to distract, where Arthur had a foldout cot for the more than occasional night he spent, Arthur had little choice but to suffer a confrontation.

"You're an idiot," Arthur had said, after Eames shoved a flyer in Arthur's hand. 

"You won't return my calls. You ignored me at that Starbucks by your apartment. You threw a book at me in Strand and nearly pushed me onto the tracks at 96th Street - and, by the way, that time was coincidence. It's New York City, you fool, we're bound to run into each other."

"What do you want?" Arthur demanded, impatient.

"To talk. Have tea. For you to spare me fifteen minutes to make my pitch."

"Your pitch? For what? To 'give us another go?'"

"Yes," Eames exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "Why not? Why the fuck not?"

"I think," Arthur said a touch belligerently, pushing against Eames's billboard clad chest, "the better question is _why_? Why, Eames, why would I want more of _your_ unreturned calls? Remember those? Remember when you needed space and more time with your buddies, and fuck me for 'blowing up' your phone to find out if you were okay or possibly dead and mutilated in somebody's basement, from doing who knows what, but definitely something shady at four o'clock in the morning. Or - " Because now that Arthur had gotten started, he didn't know how to stop. "The silent treatment. _That_ I miss, especially when it went on for days and days."

Arthur crumpled the flyer Eames had given him and threw it at his feet. He pointed a finger in Eames's face. "You hated living with me. You hated _being_ with me. And in the end, there, I was pretty much convinced you just plain old hated me. So why not, Eames? I think I have plenty of reasons."

 

_

 

"That was pretty dramatic," Arthur agreed, recalling the moment.

"Truly," Eames said, nodding. "At barely past seven in the morning, you drew yourself a pretty impressive crowd."

"I think they thought it was a filming set."

"Someone did have his camera on you."

"Yeah, and there was applause after."

Eames laughed. "You are gorgeous when infuriated. I kept vacillating from wanting to shove you back and kiss you until you couldn't breathe. You flush this fetching pink and your nostrils flare a little. Not offensively, though. Not unlike when you're in the throes of orgasm."

"And you're that remarkably coherent when having sex to take note?"

"Only with you. You've always had me enthralled, thirsty to see what you'd reveal next, what other layer you might expose to me when you were otherwise so...contained."

"I gave," Arthur said, his voice surprisingly small as a creeping doubt settled low in his belly. Had he? It wasn't the first time he'd wondered. It had never been easy to let people get close to him, but when Arthur opened a door, he opened it all the way. With Eames, he'd dismantled every wall, at least those he'd been aware of.

"I know," Eames said softly, and when he pulled Arthur to him, Arthur didn't resist. Eames's arm settled around him, gathering at Arthur's side, and Arthur's head naturally descended to Eames's shoulder. "You're the most generous soul I know."

"So what went wrong?"

"I used to ask myself that same question."

"And?"

"And I don't think anything went wrong. For something to have gone wrong implies that something had to have been right in the first place and - is it really the proper way to measure a relationship? I think you were you and I was me, and we simply didn't fit. Not then. Not yet."

"But we do now?"

"We could."

 

_

 

When had Arthur realized that he could never quit Eames? They were gloriously drunk, had binged unrepentantly on the fancy wine Arthur's clients gifted him every winter. Eames had one of Arthur's ties knotted around his head and another slung loosely over his neck. Arthur was wearing Eames's boxers, which kept slipping from his narrow hips to hang low at the juncture of his thighs, kept precariously in place by the pert roundness of his ass. He was otherwise nude, as was Eames, and the question was meant in fun. This - he and Eames - had been meant to only be in fun.

Arthur, feeling loose, uninhibited, and still giddy in the afterglow of yet another stunning round of fucking, said, "When you blew me, that first time. Blowjob a day for the rest of my life? I had stars in my eyes - that's when I knew."

"Cheeky," Eames said, with a wry grin. "Although you're not so bad yourself. I'd probably stick around for a few years for the perks."

Arthur laughed, another night, remembering, alone then and only slightly inebriated. It was a Wednesday, and it was the 13th, and that afternoon Eames had shoved him on the platform at the 96th Street stop. He shoved and shoved until Arthur's back collided with a metal column, and loomed. Apparently, it was possible for Eames to loom even though they were square in height (according to Eames, who scoffed at Arthur's insistence that Arthur had at least an inch advantage.) 

Eames's face was uncomfortably close when he added a finger directed between Arthur's narrowed eyes. "You're kind of a dick, but I'm kind of a dick, so I feel like it's an even trade. I love you. Why won't you hear me out?"

"I have - "

"No!" Eames shouted, slamming Arthur back to the column when he attempted to wriggle free. A small crowd was forming, but Eames was undeterred. "No, no you have not. I don't think you understand how serious this is. How mad I've been without you, how mad you're driving me by refusing to talk to me. How mad - " He paused, brushed a hand over his face and huffed out a breath. "Here's the answer, Arthur, that I never gave you. I knew I couldn't quit you from the start. Crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I thought. This shit is crazy. This is madness. I don't even know this guy, but I can't stop - I couldn't. Do you remember? I had to have you, like air, like food, I wanted to inhale you, to sniff you up, to shoot you into my arteries until they bulged and clogged with you and you and you, and...Do you know frightening that is? How scary you are? How scared I was - _am_ \- to have you, lose you, have you and lose you again, and...I didn't know which way was up, what to choose. Whether it was even a choice."

Arthur, stunned into silence, nodded faintly. But, yeah, he knew. He knew it deep in his bones, in the perpetual ache in his heart. The uncertainty, paralyzing him in place, even now.

"A problem here, sir?"

They both jerked their heads to find a cop standing several feet away. His hand hovered over his hip, close to where his gun jutted from its holster. Eames took a step back, smoothed down the lapel of Arthur's jacket, and lingered his hand by Arthur's throat. He stroked with the gentlest touch.

"Yeah, there is," Eames said, then released Arthur, finally. "But I don't think it's one you can fix." And with that, he stalked off. It occurred to Arthur, then, how familiar that was - to see the back of Eames disappearing, to watch him walk away, yet again.

_

 

An hour later, and Arthur and Eames were divested of their clothing, Arthur said, "We should get up. We should press the alarm."

"Or call the fire department."

"Yes, good idea." But when Arthur reached for his pants to dig out his cellphone, Eames caught his wrist and pulled it back between them.

"After another go?"

"Okay," Arthur said, smiling. "Why not?"

"Or _why_ ," Eames replied, hooking one of Arthur's legs over his shoulder. He slithered down Arthur's body. "Let me show you."


End file.
